Designing and evaluating a system for the effective analysis of sign language video content for the improvement of video quality

Signed Language communicators use video communication services as they can be used to relay manual communication. One aspect of successful video blogging (vlogging) is being able to communicate a message clearly. Visual clarity is important as manual communication relies on the visual channel exclusively for processing and can become compromised if certain elements in the video, such as the lighting or background, are not set up correctly. A tool, termed the Vlog Analysis and Suggestion Tool (VAST) has been developed to assess Signed Language, talking head style, video and provide feedback to users based on the quality. Quality, in this work, is based on three technical factors: (1) lighting; (2) signing space; and (3) background. Results from a user study on VAST indicate that the tool is easy to use, helpful to users for determining video quality, and the technical factors assessed by the system are important to users.